


I Forgot the Barbecue Sauce

by DestielsDestiny



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5x23, Barbecue, Barry Returns, Episode: s05e23 Lian Yu, F/M, Families of Choice, Forgiveness, Gen, Healing, Lian Yu, Malcolm Survives, Marriage Proposal, Post Lian Yu, Post-Canon, Reunions, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 19:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11043234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: Five annual post Lian Yu Queen family barbecues, and the people who unexpectedly attended them.In which Oliver learns to laugh, Slade flips burgers, Thea punches Malcolm, and Barry drops back into existence in the oddest place imaginable.





	I Forgot the Barbecue Sauce

**Author's Note:**

> My old family dentist played endless reruns of the Food Network. And I recently discovered Manu Bennett is on twitter: https://twitter.com/manubennett/status/869301118890897409  
> And so yeah, this happened. There is less actual barbecuing that I intended. And more Malcolm Merlyn. And more babies.

Year One

They are all battered that first year. Raw and tired and bruised. Oliver invites people by text, using the Lance’s backyard as a meeting point on Quentin’s urging, omits to mention Slade is in charge of the food, and is equal measures surprised and not when everyone both shows up, and stays in the face of Deathstroke flipping raw meat over an open flame with metal implements. 

Yes, the man had saved most of those present from a fiery death. But just as Oliver spent much of the last year in family court getting rights to see his son, Slade spent his trekking around the globe searching for his own, so far without success. 

Thea is awkwardly accepting a grilled lamb burger from Slade when a whirling blue portal opens up in the middle of the garden, and a stark-naked Barry Allen crashes onto the lawn. 

The portal closes, everyone’s mouths remain hanging open comically, and Slade deliberately places himself between Thea and the nude newcomer, his free arm, complete with sizzling flipper on the end, angling to maneuver Oliver and William behind the grill. 

Oliver is still processing Slade’s obvious protective tendencies when Barry popped to his feet, dazed but grinning. “Hey Oliver, sorry for just dropping in-hey, are those steaks? I’m starving.” 

Slade appears to not know quite what to do with Barry’s sudden closeness, complete with burst of red light that puffs out every flame on the grill. His eye angles towards Oliver with a clear, “What the hell is going on here kid” writ large between them, silent and real. 

Oliver can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, because it’s been a long year in a longer decade, and somehow, this is actually his life. 

Barry mumbles around a mouthful of searing hot steak at Slade. “Hey man, this is awesome! Also, do you have a cellphone I could borrow?” 

Oliver had forgotten what Slade’s laugh sounded like. 

Barry glances down sheepishly. “And maybe some pants?”

Oliver gives in to the craziness and joins Slade in his laughter. 

It’s the most fun he’s had in years. 

 

Year Two 

The second year they all come together, Slade is late. 

Oliver hasn’t seen the man in nearly six months, long enough that Digg has even begun to worry a little. Felicity had suggested somewhat reluctantly that they should flag his picture to some watch lists, only to be vetoed by Thea of all people. 

Oliver had settled for repolishing the man’s katanas, left behind in the lair with a note declaring. “Got a lead on Joe. Don’t follow me kid, you’ve got your own kid to worry about now.”

The day before Slade left, Samantha had offered Oliver joint custody of William. 

Which is partly why Oliver’s son is running around the Lance backyard with Quentin hot on his heels, armed with a rather colourful water gun. 

Oliver is grinning at his son when Slade comes through the gate, appropriately enough as it turns out, because the man is not alone. 

Oliver has never met Joe Wilson, but the sixteen year old is the spitting image of his father, from his dark eyes to his tanned skin and wild hair. Slouched in a hoodie, yet looking oddly vulnerable and clutching carefully at Slade’s hand, the boy looks equal measures old beyond his years and impossibly young. 

With this in mind, Oliver deliberately slows his eager approach. William, half soaked and grinning wildly, has no such compunctions. 

Oliver isn’t sure when Slade became his son’s hero, but watching the twelve year old fling himself into the Aussie’s secure arms, happy cries of “Slade, you came!” echoing around the yard, he guesses that’s just one more thing he and his son have in common. 

Joe shrinks away from the bombardment a little, and winds up face to face with Oliver. Meeting Slade’s gaze over their son’s heads, once eager and babbling, one hesitant and hopeful, Oliver suddenly knows exactly what to say. “Welcome home Joe, I’m your Uncle Oliver.”

And slowly, tentatively, Oliver learns that Joe Wilson has his father’s smile. 

Year Three

Malcolm Merlyn drops by the third year they all gather, rocking a cashmere sweater and a prosthetic foot, holding a jar of elephant sauce, and looking less like a dead man and more like something that wandered in from a GQ photoshoot. 

He saunters up to Felicity of all people, jar proffered like a priceless boon he is bestowing on them all, and grins wide enough to eat dirt. “Sorry I’m late guys. It took me forever to find the right brand of sauce.” Distantly, Oliver notices it’s his favourite flavour. Tommy’s too. Malcolm introduced them to it once, decades ago now. 

The rest of the gathering lacks the history to get Malcolm’s valiant attempt to claim the title of king-of-subtle-references-to-past-shared-memories from Slade, although to be fair, they’re all still pretty much caught up on the whole not dead thing. 

Thea makes it across the yard in record time. Predictably, her first action is to punch Malcolm. Equally predictably, he lets her. “You’re despicable.” It’s spat into the man’s bleeding face with more vehemence than Oliver’s heard from his sister in a long time. 

It’s almost enough to make him hate the man all over again. Almost. 

Oliver has never mourned for Malcolm. Has never forgiven the man for sinking the Queen’s Gambit, for setting in motion the chain of events that led to Robert Queen putting a bullet in his own brain in front of his twenty-two year old son. 

But the part of him that would give anything for his own father to walk through the garden gate one day, as if he’d never been gone, that part of him is strong enough to propel his feet across the yard. 

Oliver will never forget all the things that Malcolm has done, but the part of him that understands how close he came to becoming the Dark Archer, instead of the Green Arrow, lets him slowly raise his arms. 

He doesn’t know if he even knows how to begin to forgive Malcolm for the things the man’s done to his family. But the man who beheaded Moira Queen is currently pretending to flip burgers across the yard while quietly calculating the throwing distance between the flipper and Malcolm’s head if he twitches towards Oliver the wrong way, so maybe he already knows how to forgive the unforgivable.

Oliver moves faster than Malcolm, catching the man in an awkward embrace before anyone can move to intercept either of them. “Oliver, what-?” For just a moment, Oliver could swear he can hear Tommy’s voice instead of Malcolm’s. He closes his eyes, and hold onto the squirming bundle of international terrorist and assassin. 

It takes a minute, or many minutes, but eventually, slowly, arms being to wrap around his shoulders, his waist, his legs. It takes a bit longer, but inevitably those arms wrap around Malcolm as well. 

And that’s how group hugs are added to the list of mandatory Post-Lian-Yu-Queen-Family-Barbecues' activities. 

Year Four

Oliver proposes to Felicity just as the last of the burgers have been devoured, the crickets coming out in droves to serenade the occasion. It’s romantic, twinkling stars in the background, twilight thick in the air, their family packed around the grill and tables, smiling like loons. 

He goes down on one knee, she squeals and jumps into his arms, nearly knocking them both into the tray of champagne flutes. The ring fits perfectly. 

Slade is standing behind them, holding the twins securely and studiously ignoring the tears pricking his good eye. His rumbled “Congrats kids” slices through the night, quieting the bubbling good wishes of the rest of the gathering. 

Felicity turns, hand in Oliver’s, eyes happy and wet but still shrewd behind her glasses. Slowly, deliberately, she walks over to Slade and gazes at the man cradling her children as if they are the most important things in the universe. 

The twins had been an accident in conception, a surprise in birth, a boy with Oliver’s eyes and Felicity’s hair, a girl with Thea’s hair and eyes from who knew where. 

Joe had dragged Slade to see them when they were two weeks old, Oliver answering the door with sleep deprived eyes. Slade had looked distinctly jumpy the entire time he was cleaning the loft, ordering Joe to got to the store for supplies, and ordering a reluctant Felicity and Oliver to get some much needed sleep because yes, he had handled an infant before, thank you very much.

Predictably enough, the twins thought Slade’s voice was the most soothing thing in the world. And that his eyepatch was fascinating. 

A week into Slade and Joe basically living in their apartment, Felicity had blurted out at breakfast one morning, “Will you be their godfather?” Oliver choked on his cereal. 

Slade froze, partially squeezed orange juice running down his fingers. Felicity babbled hurriedly, “We weren’t going to bother, mostly because religion isn’t really a thing either of us much believe in, for obvious reasons, but my mother was talking about it and Oliver said Moira would have liked the idea and since she isn’t here anymore it seemed like a nice way to-“ 

She trailed off awkwardly, brain catching up with her words. Oliver carefully swallowed his mouthful of oat flakes, and dropped his head into his hand. Slade’s fingers relaxed their grip on the orange pulp clenched in his fists slowly and carefully. 

His eyes flicked to Oliver’s bowed head. “Kid?” He sounded like he was being slowly tortured. 

Oliver raised his head from his palm, and cast his eyes towards the baby monitor on the corner of the table, Joe’s adolescent voice cracking slightly on the higher notes of Mary had a Little Lamb drifting through it. “We finally picked names the other day.” Oliver deliberately didn’t blink as he swung his gaze back to meet Slade’s. “Robbie and Shadow. It seemed appropriate.” 

He didn’t say, “You’re not Billy.” He didn’t say, “Mom would understand.” He didn’t say, “I forgive you.” He did say, “And we would be honoured if you would be part of their life.” He didn’t add, “It seemed appropriate.”

Slade’s gaze swung from Felicity’s tentative smile, to Oliver’s intense look, and back. A single tear slipped loose from his good eye and worked its way down his face. His voice, when it came, was even more cracked than usual. 

“It would be my honour kids.” Oliver let himself grin, Felicity’s quiet whoop filling the kitchen. In the distance, the twins’ howls mingled with Joe’s frustrated, “Guys, you’re supposed to be quiet in there!” 

Now, months later, the twins graduating to flailing their fists towards Slade’s eyepatch strap whenever the opportunity presents itself, and Joe shirking godbrother duty as often as possible to play with William, Felicity’s steps towards the man who once tried to kill her are slow and sure. 

She pauses in front of Slade, and carefully brings up a hand to rest against his bad cheek, her fingers tracing his scars. Oliver feels himself swallow. In the twilight, William and Joe’s dark jerseys are almost indistinguishable as they kick a football around. Oliver allows himself to lament his Slade induced deterioration in vocabulary for a moment, and subsequently misses Felicity pressing a kiss on Slade’s cheek. 

He hears her words though, just as they all do, just as they were all meant to. “I’m glad you’re here Slade.” The man in question is too choked up to reply, but Oliver knows that inside, he is starting to realize that this is what if feels like to finally come home. To finally be forgiven. 

And Oliver knows from personal experience, that it feels pretty damn good. 

Year Five

Oliver invites Slade to join him on patrol the night of the fifth anniversary of Lian Yu being blown to pieces. It’s hardly an unusual occurrence over the last five years, but since Slade moved into the spare room after little Moira was born and Joe went off to college, the man has spent far more time babysitting than wielding a sword. Oliver rather misses the company to be frank. Nobody has ever quite managed to match the level of cohesive co-dependence that is Slade and him working together in the field. 

Predictably, the whole thing is an ambush. Equally predictably, they succeed in taking out all forty odd attackers in record time. Also predictably, Oliver manages to dislocate his wrist of all things. 

Slade appears in front of him as he’s still gasping through the pain, his hands carefully grasping Oliver’s forearms in support and for a moment, it’s sixteen years in the past, and Oliver is a naïve and starving boy again, Slade a wild and bitter castaway. 

They’ve known each other for the better part of two decades by this point, survived hell together, survived worse apart. Oliver made it past thirty, Slade lived to see forty and may just live to see fifty. They found their sons together. They are brothers again. Five years ago tonight, they left Lian Yu as brothers, not as strangers or friends or even enemies. 

For a long moment, their eyes meet, memories a thick smoke around them, acrid and bitter, sweet and sorrow filled. Slade’s eye crinkles first. Oliver greets the minute movement with a grin. Slade abruptly breaks into a guffaw. Oliver feels laughter bubble up through the pain. 

Slade’s hand carefully supports his injured wrist, as his other hand clasps the back of Oliver’s neck in an affectionate shake. “I’m glad I met you kid.”

It should seem random, out of nowhere. It’s the first words they’ve had occasion to speak to each other all night. Oliver drops his head onto Slade’s broad shoulder, his forehead thunking reassuringly against the body armour. Laughter shakes both their frames. 

“I’m glad I know you Slade.” It’s choked up, it’s rough, it’s over a decade late, but it’s never felt more true. Or more real. 

00

We have a barbecue every year on the anniversary of the day we all made it off the island, that last time. None of us quite know why we gather; it’s a tradition none of us quite want to take credit for starting. 

We only burn the meat about half the time, and something exciting usually happens. We have fun, we laugh, we eat, we hug. 

And at the end of every night, we raise our glasses in a toast. Slade always leads.  
Next year I think he’s going to let Robbie do it. I’ve heard him teaching him how to say it properly. 

I like to think that wherever my dad is, he can hear it. 

Shengcun. 

We survived.


End file.
